PANJIM: Five months after the Prof Bhaskar Nayak-led committee submitted its report on the Medium of Instruction (MOI) at the elementary education level, the report is yet to reach to Chief Minister Pramod Sawant. The document is still with Secretary Education Neela Mohanan, to whose office the same had been submitted.
The 17-member expert panel submitted its recommendation on MOI to the State government on January 25, after almost two and a half years since it was constituted. A 16-page report was placed before the govt.
Former Chief Minister (late) Manohar Parrikar illnesses, followed by model code of conduct owing to Parliamentary elections, were some of the issues that kept this on the backburner.
While Mohanan remained unavailable for comments, sources revealed that the report remained untouched.
“At present there is status quo on Medium of Instruction issue. Though the report is been submitted, nothing has happened on it. The document is lying as it,” sources said adding ‘It has not reached to even CMO’.
Sources informed that report basically focuses on the steps that need to be taken to improve the quality of education at primary school level and points out lacunas in the existing education system.
In a kind of U-turn, at time of submission of report, Nayak said that MOI was not in terms of reference of the committee and that it has only given suggestion to improve quality of education at the primary school level.
The State through a cabinet decision in 2014 continued to give grants to all 137 English medium primary schools, which was massively opposed by the anti-English protagonists.
This had forced the government to constitute a committee, just ahead of the 2017 Assembly election. The committee was constituted for wider consultation and facilitation to the government to decide on the MOI issue. The panel had to study the entire system of grants and financial support to the government aided schools for primary education and make necessary recommendations so as to improve its overall efficiency for achieving the educational goals of the State.
